Controversial internet TV start-up Aereo, a New York City (USA)-based service that looks to offer online streaming to subscribers via their own remotely-stored ‘thumbnail antenna’, has gone from strength to strength despite the court cases surrounding them, with the latest funding boost to the service coming from Barry Diller’s media company IAC.

The investment from IAC with Highland Capital Partners has now seen Aereo raise $38m across all their ‘investment rounds’, as they intend to use their windfall to fund an expansion to 22 American cities, the most notable markets of which are Chicago, Houston and Miami, the first time that the service will be offered away from New York as the company plan to execute a ‘nationwide expansion’.

Aereo first launched last March for potential subscribers in the New York area, offering for $12 per month a chance for subscribers to stream live TV from major broadcast networks (including ‘The Big 4′, PBS, Telemundo, and The CW, amongst others), through their connected devices for, along with the ability to remotely record such content to a cloud service.

However, Aereo has not existed without controversy, as the TV industry (a combined case featuring all major TV networks as the prosecution) declared it to be a copyright violation and ‘a threat’ to their own abilities to generate advertising revenue and controlling subscription fees, though that case was dismissed (currently being challenged) and the start-up was able to operate as planned, with no official figures of subscribers or revenue so far to determine just how much of an impact they have had on the market.

With an income boost having come their way, will Aereo continue their aims of creating a new means of broadcast hosting in America? The only figures that will really matter to all concerned over the coming months are the number of subscribers so far…